


des rêves lucides

by sagesprouts



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Light Angst, M/M, Magical Realism, Memory Loss, Well... Mostly, i Love cliché bullshit, kind of?, no beta reader we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 11:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20134522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagesprouts/pseuds/sagesprouts
Summary: “I have a bad memory,” Ikuya says.It isn’t a lie, but it isn’t exactly the truth, either.





	des rêves lucides

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve read a couple of fics with this general premise (dreams altering reality) in other fandoms and I’ve always thought it was pretty neat, so I figured I’d try my hand at it. Let’s be real, Free! makes a lot more sense as a magical realism story anyway.
> 
> This fic was a really long time coming, but I’ve decided to just start posting it in order to motivate myself to actually finish it. Wish me luck!!

_It’s dark, in this place where Ikuya finds himself. Light filters dimly from somewhere above, shifting in the same way it does when it hits the surface of a pool, distorted, scattering around him in abstract shapes. He reaches his hand in front of him, and the air is thick and viscous, moving all wrong. When he takes a breath it sticks like tar, choking him._

_ Ahead, far ahead and deep in the darkness, there’s a shape. With great effort, he moves towards it. It hunches over, folding in on itself in a crouched position. It’s small, but not frail. Fighting through the heavy air, Ikuya inches closer to the figure. _

_ It looks up at him, and all he can see are it’s eyes. Bright, piercing, phosphorescent, as blue as the sea. _

_ I’m dreaming, he realizes in a panic. _

_ Oh no. _

_ The figure stands, glances back at him again. The air is water now, rushing into his lungs. Drowning, gasping, and then suddenly, _

_ nothing _

_ at _

_ all._

When Ikuya opens his eyes, he feels a foreboding sense of _ wrongness _in the air before he can even process being awake at all. Something is different again. He sits up, desperately trying to recall anything at all about his dream, any clues about the reality he awoke into.

His walls are white now, he notices, and the curtains have shifted from a transparent tan fabric to an opaque blue. A potted plant sits next to the window, and he’s pretty certain that wasn’t there before. He closes his eyes, and then opens them again. _ Blue,_ he vaguely recalls. A glow, a gasp, the familiar distress of cold water in his throat. _ Blue. Drowning. _

Haru.

Sunlight streams through the opening between the new curtains, and he takes a moment to collect his thoughts. It’s Haru again, somehow, but that doesn’t tell him anything. He sighs, reaching for his phone to begin sifting through the remnants of a recent past that he may or may not remember. He used to assume that he would adjust to this over time, or at least he hoped that he would, but that had only ever been wishful thinking. This would never get any easier.

He scrolls past a conversation about the upcoming tournament (still happening, he notes, no changes there), a photo of a fancy looking coffee from a little cafe he remembers visiting with Hiyori not too long ago, and the same message that he saw right before drifting off into his usual restless few hours of sleep last night: _ Don’t forget practice starts at 9 tomorrow! _

_ 8:32, _reads the clock on his phone, and so he rubs his aching eyes, stretches, and tries in vain to ignore the feeling of dread that’s taken up residence in his chest. _ Haru, _he thinks, as he grabs his bag and heads out the door of his apartment. _ It’s always Haru. _  
  


A rush of cold air hits Ikuya as he pulls himself out of the water, but the chill is welcome. It shocks him back to alertness. Hiyori’s hand is already outstretched with a towel for him.

“Your times have been getting slower again,” Hiyori says with a curious look. His words are careful, as if Ikuya is a skittish animal that he might startle. “Are you alright?” Ikuya almost wants to laugh. _ No, _he thinks, _ am I ever? _

“Just tired,” he says instead.

That’s not true. He’s always tired, but there’s a difference. There’s an edge to this _tired,_ the worldly exhaustion of adjusting to a major shift in reality. Hiyori knows there’s something he isn’t saying, and Ikuya _ knows _that he knows, but he’s comfortable in the knowledge that Hiyori will never outright ask. He wouldn’t know how to explain if he did.

_ I can’t dream, _he sometimes imagines himself saying.

_ Well, I can. But I shouldn’t, because bad things happen. And it’s hard to make sure you don’t dream when you sleep, so usually it’s just easier to not do that either. I’m tired. I’m always tired. It’s fine. _

But Hiyori will never outright ask, and Ikuya knows that, and he’s grateful.

The buzz of chatter coming from outside the locker room sets Ikuya on edge, but even worse is the way that everyone’s eyes are drawn to him as he exits. Terashima is the one to speak first.

“You used to swim with him, right?”

Ikuya already knows, feels it in the shiver that runs through his whole body, but he asks anyway.

“Swim with who?”

Terashima looks at him like he’s stupid, but in all fairness, that’s how Terashima looks at everyone. “Nanase, obviously. Weren’t you listening?” Ikuya shakes his head at that question, and Terashima sighs.

“We were on the same team at Iwatobi Junior High,” Ikuya manages. “What about him?”

Terashima turns to point at another teammate, Sagae. “I _ told _you, didn’t I? I said it wasn’t a coincidence.”

_ Coincidence, _thinks Ikuya, but he must have said it out loud, too, because Sagae turns to him and smiles apologetically. “Someone noticed how similar his freestyle is to yours, and Kotarou said that there must be a reason.”

“His freestyle…”

“We were checking out some of our competition for the tournament next week,” Sagae explains, holding up his phone with a video paused on the screen. “Want to watch with us?” It’s hard to see the swimmer’s face from the far away angle on the small screen, but an ice-cold wave of recognition rushes through Ikuya, and he just can’t deal with this right now.

It never gets any easier. It should, but it doesn’t. The world shifts, and he is the only one left behind, carrying all of the scars of a past that no longer exists. A past in which Haru had quit swimming at age thirteen with no explanation, and hadn’t swam again since. A world where things had been different, where Haru-

“Hiyori, let’s go,” he said, turning to leave.

He hears Hiyori apologizing to their teammates - Ikuya is just tired, it’s been a long day, maybe next time - but he doesn’t wait around. He knows that Hiyori will catch up, knows that he’ll know where to find Ikuya, sitting slouched against a tree with his headphones on and his eyes shut, trying to make sense of all of this, and he knows that Hiyori will want to ask what’s wrong, desperately, but he won’t.

He doesn’t even question it, not even while combing through the rest of his life for even the smallest consequences of his dream last night. Hiyori hasn’t changed, he knows, because Hiyori never changes.

* * *

The first time Ikuya truly understood just how dangerous his dreams could be wasn’t the first time it ever happened, but it was the first time a new reality had stolen away something that really mattered. 

The winter before his first year of middle school went out like a lion, all cold winds and snow that seemed as if it would never end. Ikuya awoke one day in late March with a warm forehead and a slight sniffle that managed to progress to a full-blown fever by night time. Natsuya, in a sickness mask, brought him a glass of water and sat on the far edge of the bed to keep him company.

His brother was his very best friend in the world, and Ikuya, heavy-headed and delirious with the flu, was deeply grateful for Natsuya’s presence. Slipping in and out of consciousness, he wasn’t sure which of his hazy thoughts managed to translate into words, but Natsuya listened nonetheless.

“Aniki,” said Ikuya worriedly, waking with a start after nearly drifting off, “don’t let me fall asleep.”

Natsuya laughed. “You need your rest,” he said, ruffling Ikuya’s hair.

Ikuya shook his head, eyes wide and frantic and feverish. “No, you don’t understand. I don’t want to have any dreams. When I do, bad things happen. So you can’t let me.”

Natsuya smiled, amused but not patronizing. “Like nightmares, you mean?” Ikuya shook his head again.

“No, for real.” Tears were welling up in the corners of his eyes, and he leaned forward with intensity. “I wake up and stuff is different. My memories are all wrong, even though I know they happened, and it’s scary. That’s why I don’t want to sleep. Please, I’m scared aniki. I don’t want anything to change again.” The tears in his eyes began to stream down his face.

“It’s okay, I’m right here. See?” Natsuya put a reassuring hand on Ikuya’s shoulder. “There’s nothing to be scared of. I’ll still be here when you wake up, and you’ll feel better if you get a good night’s sleep.”

Ikuya shook his head again, just a tiny motion before his words turned into sobs. Natsuya sat at the edge of the bed protectively until Ikuya exhausted himself crying and surrendered to unconsciousness.

Ikuya doesn’t remember much about the dream, just bits and pieces: blinding sunlight blotting out everything around him, the sticky-sweet scent of flowers hanging heavy in the air, and a deep chill settling under his skin despite the warmth around him. When he awoke, he was no longer sick, and the scent of cherry blossoms drifted in through the open window. It had been an unusually mild spring, apparently, is what he learned from the weather report on the radio in the kitchen. He also learned, that day, that his flu had never happened, and that he and Natsuya had not been close for quite some time.

* * *

After practice, the routine is the same as it’s always been, with Hiyori as an anchor for any small sense of consistency left in the world. The familiarity of it all manages to somehow be both a comfort and a source of restless irritation at the same time. While it’s nice to know what hasn’t changed, what _ won’t _change, on days like these normality feels like more trouble than it’s worth. The only thing that Ikuya really wants right now is to sit in the dark, blasting music from his headphones and pointedly _ not _thinking about Haru’s apparent return to swimming.

“What do you feel like for lunch today?” Hiyori asks, his tone so perfectly casual that Ikuya can immediately tell it’s an act.

Ikuya shrugs, noncommittal. “Not hungry.”

“You should still have something to eat,” Hiyori says, and his smile is slipping more than he normally lets it because he doesn’t seem to realize that Ikuya is still watching him from the corner of his eye. “You need to take care of yourself. How about we check out that crêpe cafe near your place? You know, that one we wanted to go to on Thursday, but-“

“I’m not hungry,” Ikuya repeats, this time the words coming out more forceful than he had intended. The crêpe cafe is new. He has no idea what had happened on Thursday. “I don’t want anything, and it would be stupid for me to go there and not eat. Go if you want, but I’m going home.”

The day after a dream always leaves him irritable and on edge, caught between exhaustion and hyper-vigilance, and he hadn’t intended to snap. Hiyori seems completely unfazed by Ikuya’s sudden outburst though, more concerned than surprised, and that just makes Ikuya feel worse.

“We can get groceries,” Ikuya says after a moment, softer but more distant. “We’ll make something at home. I don’t feel like being out right now.”

“Is everything-“

“I’m just tired,” Ikuya lies. “Don’t worry about me.”

An hour later, Ikuya is sprawled across his bed, a steaming mug of tea waiting for him on the coffee table and the sizzling sounds of something frying drifting in from the kitchen.

_ I can do it, _Ikuya had protested when Hiyori immediately started setting up in the kitchen, but Hiyori had just shooed him away. _ You’re not feeling well, _ he told Ikuya as he turned on the kettle. _ You go lie down, I’ll take care of everything. _So that’s what Ikuya did.

Feeling small and helpless, he covers his face with a pillow, immersing himself in darkness. In the darkness, he can pretend for a moment that things are normal. He can pretend that _ normal _is something at all attainable - that his most incomprehensible and traumatic memories aren’t always lurking in the depths of his subconscious, waiting to be dredged up over and over and again the moment he lets his guard down.

He thought that all of this, the _ Haru _stuff, was over after the months - years even - that he spent fighting to finally leave that painful chapter of his life behind. He had grieved. He had moved on, moved forward. It was done. He had thought he was stronger than this. He wishes he could be stronger.

* * *

On the sunny spring day that was to be Ikuya’s first at Iwatobi Junior High, Natsuya sat next to him on the train and neither of them said a word. Despite the dappled sunlight filtering through the trees, the air was crisp with a slight wind - an unwelcome reminder of that _ other _springtime, a past that no longer belonged to him. This was all wrong, and he was the only one who knew it. He glanced uneasily at his brother, who either didn’t notice or didn’t care and continued to lazily gaze out the window instead. Ikuya looked away.

He still hadn’t been able to put the pieces together, despite the not insignificant amount of time and effort he had spent puzzling it out, sifting through what he knew and what he had thought he had known. Separating new facts from his old experiences. There are some things that are just too much to explain away with memory problems. If there was one thing that Ikuya knew, it was the deep resentment he felt for this new Natsuya, this unknowable person who took the place of his brother.

“Come on,” said the person who was supposed to be Natsuya. “Pay attention, this is our stop.”

Ikuya had half a mind to stay seated out of sheer spite, but before he knew it he was on his feet, being pulled along by the wrist by his brother as they both exited the train. As soon as he found himself on the platform watching the train speed away, Ikuya jerked his arm away sharply.

”Don’t do that! I’m not a baby,” he pouted, almost instantly taking note of the petulant tone of his own voice with annoyance.

“Then don’t act like one,” Natsuya scolded. “I’m just trying to help you.”

Ikuya turned his head away indignantly, blinking hard because he absolutely _ refused _to cry over something as stupid as this, especially right after getting accused of being a baby. The sky was blue and the air was crisp and all around the station people were bustling about, going about their lives as they always have: unaware of the hundreds of parallel worlds that no longer existed, unaware that someday this moment too will likely be nothing but a story in the imagination of a boy with a very bad memory.

“I don’t need anyone’s help,” Ikuya said, but Natsuya was already too far away to hear it.

* * *

By the time Hiyori finally sets down two plates on the coffee table, the tea has gone lukewarm and Ikuya still hasn’t moved. Hiyori tentatively takes a seat on the sofa, but he doesn’t touch the food on his own plate. He glances over at Ikuya and waits for some sort of acknowledgement. Ikuya just closes his eyes. His hands are as cold as ever, so he places them over his closed eyelids. The coolness feels nice. Grounding.

He can feel Hiyori watching him, still.

“Haru is swimming again,” Ikuya says eventually, opening his eyes and breaking the uneasy silence that had stretched between the two of them.

Hiyori looks at him carefully, with an expression that’s half confusion and half concern and mostly just ends up looking like sadness. It’s not unfamiliar. Nothing about Hiyori is unfamiliar, truthfully, and after all of these years Ikuya can read him like an open book (or better than a book, if Ikuya is being fully honest with himself; he’s never been much of a reader). Patient, loyal, consistent Hiyori, who is somehow simultaneously _ too much _and _ not enough_. Always by Ikuya’s side, doting and fussing and tiptoeing around the questions that he desperately wants to ask but never ever does, never will, because he can read Ikuya too - just as well as any of those Great American Novels with tattered covers and dog-eared pages that he’s always dragging around in his duffel bag - and so he knows better than to try anymore.

When he speaks, his voice is soft and cautious as ever, but his words come out with a slight bitterness that could have easily gone unnoticed had he been talking with anyone else. “Nanase has been swimming again for a while now. I was looking at-“ He pauses, reconsiders his words. “We did talk about it before graduation, right? About your old friends from Iwatobi?”

Ikuya looks at him blankly, too tired to arrange his features into even a vague approximation of recollection. Hiyori’s expression twists into something darker, clouded with pain and worry.

“You don’t remember.”

Ikuya shakes his head, not meeting Hiyori’s eyes. It’s like this every time. It never gets any easier.

“Sorry. I don’t.”

_ I have a bad memory_, Ikuya often says. It isn’t a lie, but it isn’t exactly the truth, either.

It had been a lot easier when he was younger, when no one cared to ask too many questions and any inconsistencies were easily brushed off as the misrememberings of an imaginative child, but with every new reality he’d awoken into came a whole new set of facts to get wrong. Another jumble of mistakes waiting to be made and disappointments yet to be realized.

It was true from the outside, at least: Ikuya’s memory was unreliable at best. It wasn’t as though anyone else could have known the strange, surreal truth - how it wasn’t really that his memory was failing him, but rather that the world around him refused to stay consistent with his own experiences.

_ Sorry, I just have a very bad memory_.

It’s an explanation, at least.

**Author's Note:**

> come follow me on twitter @sagesprouts and yell about anime with me


End file.
